St Gregory's Foundation

St Gregory's Foundation works in Russia and the former Soviet Union to tackle the social problems facing children, teenagers, parents and carers. Our projects address the root causes of disadvantage by putting families before institutions, strengthening a sense of responsibility in young and old alike and providing opportunities for vulnerable people to fulfill their potential. Our work makes our beneficiaries active participants in improving their own lives and encourages a more charitable society.

Thank you for helping feed homeless teenagers

By Nino Chubabria - Project Director

Thank you to everyone who has supported our project in the last year. It has been an exciting year, but each excitement has brought its own difficulties. We organised for 11 boys to be released from prison under a government amnesty, but this meant more mouths to feed. We are very grateful to everyone who has helped us keep our commitment not to turn anyone away who is in need.

This task gets harder at this time of year, as, quite apart from our regular residents, more homeless teenagers come to the house for food and a bed when the weather turns cold. We usually have mattresses and camp beds in every corner through the winter.

Very soon we hope to launch a new car hire business, to be run as a social enterprise. This will help us give our young people vocational training and will help us pay the bills. The first car has been donated for this wonderful scheme by the European Commission. We would give you a picture of it, but apparently it will take two months for all the paperwork to be done to finalise the gift.

We try our hardest to be self-sufficient, but unfortunately, we do still need help to buy food for our young people. Can you help us give them a feast to remember for their New Year celebrations?

Thank you!

Dec 4, 2013

How you are helping Arina and her family

By Valentina Balobanova - Project Director

Arina

A huge thank you for everything you do for our club for hearing impaired children! With your support, our Club was able to help many parents with children with hearing impairments to become more confident and to strengthen their parenting skills. The parents have started to stand up for their children's rights. Many of our "Club graduates" are now attending mainstream kindergartens or schools. Thank you!

Today I wanted to tell you about Arina, who started coming to our Club with her mama a month ago. It turns out that I have known her family for more than ten years, almost since our Club was started in 2004. At that time I started helping her older sister, Christina, who also has a hearing impairment like her parents. Now Christina has a cochlear implant, which can help replace the sensation of hearing, she goes to an ordinary school and communicates using both speech and sign language.

Arina is now two years old. She is a wonderful, active little girl. She shows a lot of initiative when she is playing and tries to do everything independently. She is trying to talk and also uses sign language. Arina likes all our activities, both the music and the games. She gets involved with everything and also helps the other children, especially her friend Yegor.

Arina and Yegor are wonderful children. Today they came to the Club in their best clothes because they wanted to have their photo taken for you. We look forward to watching Arina progress and giving her the opportunities she needs to take her place in society.

Arina and Yegor

Oct 18, 2013

Baby Misha learns to laugh thanks to your support

By Yulia Kibalova - Teacher for hearing impaired children

Misha

I remember the first time Misha's family came to our support group. He was eight months old then, and had only just started wearing a hearing aid. His mum called them headphones and couldn't believe that her son really couldn't hear anything.

Mishutka is the long-awaited third child in his family and is very loved. His mum herself used to work with visually impaired children as a teacher. We could see how sensitively and affectionately she interacted with her son, and in return he would smile at her with his wide-eyed look. But he didn't talk at all.

Summer passed and autumn was making itself felt.

The group started meeting again and again we saw Misha and his family. This wide-eyed boy had grown up a lot over the summer and he had also had a cochlear implant fitted. Now he turns round when you call him, even if you just whisper. True, he finds it difficult to locate where the sound is coming from, but that can be learnt. Mishka babbles away a lot now and laughs out loud! At the club he really likes to play with his brother and with the other children and absolutely loves all the different musical instruments!